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Re: Donnie W or Larry B

Who exactly ran the team while they were both there? I kept hearing on local talk radio that Donnie was making "all" final decisions, and Bird was more of a PR hire/GM in waiting.... but is this true?

You'll get arguments from about 3 directions. It just depends on who you'd rather blame for being inept since apparently nobody is going to just hand us that info on a silver platter.

Who do you believe could make a series of bad decisions or decide to stand pat or cut losses or not cut losses? Walsh? Bird? ... or the typical paralyzing nature of multiple people on different pages making decisions? There you have to consider the combo possibilities of Bird and Walsh... and then factor in Morway and even Simon.

We've been told Walsh had final decision power and that makes sense to me. We've been told Walsh did the heavy lifting and that makes sense as well to me. But that doesn't mean he wasn't given lots of bad input by Bird and Morway. It also doesn't mean Bird/Morway didn't self-censor their ideas through what they felt/knew Walsh would or wouldn't sign off on. Ex- If you know Walsh won't trade Jermaine O'Neal except for Kobe or Lebron then why bother even bringing any other deals (or ideas) to him?

And...
Why would you even have Walsh on the payroll if he was just sitting in his office all day long listening to the radio or something besides doing real NBA Pacers work? But then there's the 'old boy's club' argument where the Pacers have a reputation in some circles of creating jobs and titles for people that really aren't needed but are given out as some type of entitlement or dividend for loyalty or whatever.

But then technically it must be said that Simon is the one who ultimately has final decision power. Sometimes there are leaks that he's not been as hands-off as we were led to believe back in the days when the Star was the PR arm of PS&E.

And there's always this possibility:
Bird/Morway is just as inept in building a team in the modern NBA in modern Indiana/Indianapolis as Walsh was in his final years. ...Or we're more interested in cutting expenses than team-building right now making them appear that way... Or they all (Walsh, Bird, Morway) were and still are hamstrung by ownership in some way that limited their effectiveness when things were needing addressed.

My opinion is Walsh did the heavy lifting and his extended stay (after the hiring of Bird) killed any chance of Bird having a honeymoon period. But I've lost tons of confidence in the FO has time has went on after Walsh's departure so I think Walsh has some bad company in this team being where they are now.

Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

------

"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatís teamwork."

Re: Donnie W or Larry B

You'll get arguments from about 3 directions. It just depends on who you'd rather blame for being inept since apparently nobody is going to just hand us that info on a silver platter.

Who do you believe could make a series of bad decisions or decide to stand pat or cut losses or not cut losses? Walsh? Bird? ... or the typical paralyzing nature of multiple people on different pages making decisions? There you have to consider the combo possibilities of Bird and Walsh... and then factor in Morway and even Simon.

We've been told Walsh had final decision power and that makes sense to me. We've been told Walsh did the heavy lifting and that makes sense as well to me. But that doesn't mean he wasn't given lots of bad input by Bird and Morway. It also doesn't mean Bird/Morway didn't self-censor their ideas through what they felt/knew Walsh would or wouldn't sign off on. Ex- If you know Walsh won't trade Jermaine O'Neal except for Kobe or Lebron then why bother even bringing any other deals (or ideas) to him?

And...
Why would you even have Walsh on the payroll if he was just sitting in his office all day long listening to the radio or something besides doing real NBA Pacers work? But then there's the 'old boy's club' argument where the Pacers have a reputation in some circles of creating jobs and titles for people that really aren't needed but are given out as some type of entitlement or dividend for loyalty or whatever.

But then technically it must be said that Simon is the one who ultimately has final decision power. Sometimes there are leaks that he's not been as hands-off as we were led to believe back in the days when the Star was the PR arm of PS&E.

And there's always this possibility:
Bird/Morway is just as inept in building a team in the modern NBA in modern Indiana/Indianapolis as Walsh was in his final years. ...Or we're more interested in cutting expenses than team-building right now making them appear that way... Or they all (Walsh, Bird, Morway) were and still are hamstrung by ownership in some way that limited their effectiveness when things were needing addressed.

My opinion is Walsh did the heavy lifting and his extended stay (after the hiring of Bird) killed any chance of Bird having a honeymoon period. But I've lost tons of confidence in the FO has time has went on after Walsh's departure so I think Walsh has some bad company in this team being where they are now.

Excellent work. I think this sums it up quite nicely and is about as honest and insightful as anyone on here could reasonably be about the situation.